Get Incensed

Let’s get this party started…

Quick. Name 25 of the most raucous party towns in the U.S.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you didn’t have St. Charles, Missouri in your top 25.

St. Charles might not even be in your top 300 if you’re the kind of overachieving obsessive compulsive person who went that far down the list.

Still, there are those that think the nightlife in St. Charles is getting just a bit out of hand. There’s a bill before the city council that would ban “swearing in bars, along with table-dancing, drinking contests and profane music.”

Presumably, it would be alright for the local Bennigan’s to continue to host the Silver Swans Quilting Club on Thursday night. But only if Miriam doesn’t try to climb up on the bar when someone tells her for the 800th time that Golden Girls was canceled.

Suddenly having all your friends over for a party at your grandmother’s house is starting to look pretty sweet…

If you’re going to outlaw swearing, shouldn’t it be in a place where people actually give a shit hoot? Like maybe at a halfway house for Tourette’s patients or a Gymboree play group?

Good luck with that whole banning of profane music thing, too. If you’re going to outlaw music with suggestive lyrics, you’ll have to find a CD of greatest harpsichord hits from the Victorian Era.

The great thing about the internet is that you don’t have to imagine what life will be like in St. Charles if this bill gets passed. It’s already up on YouTube:

I gotta cut loose….

Is there some sort of brain disease sweeping the Midwest? First, Kansas City had to tell people they could use the airport and now St. Charles is looking to outlaw going to bars for, um…pretty much every reason you’d actually go to a bar.

Next thing you’ll tell me is they’ve outlawed masturbatiing on public transportation.

Wait, …. what?

Awwwww, come on, man….

“…You must earn it…”

In a shadowy and brutal world, the ultimate contest is taking place to determine who will blog … and who else will blog.

No quarter is asked. None is given.

There is no mercy. And there are no rules…

Well, wait … actually, there are some rules …

But only one can win Project Blog (now being held over at BCS Frenzy).

The brainstorm of the mysteriously exotic Allison Boyer (I’ll bet she’s one of those people who can arch one eyebrow), Project Blog was created to be the most grueling test of blogging skills ever devised. Blogging gladiators must compete in a no-links-barred battle to the end.

Only five remain standing sitting at their laptops.

Among them, one lonely warrior will risk it all for love, honor, vengeance, and a javascript widget to go mano-a-womeno with some of the most skilled bloggers currently blogging in the, um… blogging blogosphere.

If you watch closely (and drink enough Pinot Noir) you can see the contestants emerge from behind the artificially-created fog…

There’s Kate. Experienced, ruthless ruthful (see comments) and crafty. Her uncanny insight and willingness to tell critics to get stuffed make her one of the favorites to survive.

From out of the shadows… it’s Winnie. Master of the deadly View Jitsu, which enables her to constantly adopt different styles depending on the Nielsen ratings. Her legions of fans will not be denied.

It used to be if you were from Boston, you’d never win anything. Then, all of a sudden, the Red Sox, Patriots, and Jodie were all champions at their respective sports. Jodie has more graduate degrees than the entire Celtics organization and will use her knowledge to slam-dunk her competitors. (Especially the ones who use lame extended sports metaphors…)

Do not be fooled by the many different costumes of Sally. Like one of the classic Bond villains, she is strong, wily and fashion-conscious. Best of all, she doesn’t have one of those goofy 007 names like Lotta Hooters or I. Wanda Sleepvityu.

Stay tuned to BCS Frenzy for this week’s contest, prizes and mixed martial arts competition.

It’s gonna be more laughs than a Jean-Claude Van Damme film festival.

Awarded to us by The Cult of Qelqoth

Man, I had a dreadful flight ….

I love monkeys.

I don’t mean in the same way people down South love their pigs, I just mean you could have a monkey show up at my best friend’s funeral and I’d start laughing.

How funny are monkeys? If you invited a monkey over to your house, you could watch Terms of Endearment, Beaches and Resident Evil back-to-back and not use a single Kleenex.

When Bette Midler starts singing Wind Beneath My Wings and the monkey starts running around with his arms out imitating an airplane, I guarantee you’ll forget all about Barbara Hershey and her terminal disease.

And speaking of terminal diseases (brought to you by Seques R Us), the folks at Kansas City International Airport have put together a snappy little commercial to persuade you to use their facility.

This is a brilliant commercial on so many levels.

First off, it has monkeys. That alone should win it a Clio which is the advertising equivalent of a gold medal at the Special Olympics.

Another great feature of this ad is that it is directed at a niche audience of Kansans who are maybe a bit slower than the rest of the population. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions here, but how stupid do you have to be to need a commercial to tell you the airport is one of your travel options?

Right now this conversation is taking place in hundreds of Jayhawk households:

Ma: Gee, Paw, I reckon I’d like to go to Florida on vacation.

Paw: Come on, Ma. You know I only get two weeks vacation from the manure factory and if we take the tractor it’ll take us 10 days just to drive down there.

Announcer dude: KCI makes flying easy …

Paw: Grab your calico panties, Ma! We’re a-goin’ to Disney World!

I hope you’ll allow me a wry inner smile when I imagine somewhere a Kansas Board of Education member is thinking to himself, “Damn! If a monkey can navigate this airport, it must be easy.”

And if the sight of a monkey breezing through remote parking and airport security gets a couple of Board members to re-think their opposition to teaching evolution … I’d say we’re all winners.

Can you spot the difference? ….

The cocoon people are out there.

They’re out there with their iPods and their Blutooth technology, wrapped up in their own little multimedia world talking, texting and bopping to their music.

And generally making life more difficult for those of us who choose to be reasonably fully engaged in our daily existence.

It’s not like I’m some kind of latter day Luddite who’s against all kinds of technology. I love new gadgets and high-tech stuff. I have an iPod, a cell phone and even an ergonomically-designed left-handed carrot peeler.

So, I get that texting your bff about what flavor soda you had with lunch is vitally important. I just don’t get why you need to stop at the base of an escalator to do it.

I really do understand wanting to hear the closing vocal riff of one of your favorite songs. I don’t understand why you have to hold up the rest of us who have 20 minutes for lunch as you take 15 minutes to step up to the cash register and fumble for change while you search for that other really great song by Hannah Montana. You know, the one with the really meaningful lyrics that speak to your soul… Life’s what you make it, so let’s make it rock… Yeah, that one.

So, in that spirit of understanding, let’s take a moment to acknowledge some of the people who are just so much cooler than you and I could ever hope to be….

To the businessman with the Klingon earpiece sharing all the fascinating details of how you closed that big mouse pad deal: I’m in awe of your awesome negotiating skills and your cutthroat business acumen. You can’t even imagine how impressed I am that you’re still humble enough to ride public transportation with the rest of us.

To the soccer mom at Starbucks who lets everyone within earshot know how irritable bowel syndrome is affecting the rest of her busy schedule: Thank you for sharing intimate personal details I’d normally only have access to if you’d signed a medical waiver. And thank you for doing it all while at the same time reminding us how hard it is to be a stay-at-home mom and maintain a smug sense of superiority over those women who are working 50 hours a week.

To the Tupac-in-Training who feels it is necessary to rap along with the lyrics I already can hear blasting from your ear buds: I hope I don’t come off as ungrateful when I point out I’d prefer my son learns it’s totally his option whether he decides to put a hyphen between “mother” and “f*cker.” If it’s okay with you, I figured I’d maybe save that lesson for a couple of years from now … like when he’s in the fifth grade.

in the final analysis, you cocoon people aren’t nearly as cool as you’d like the rest of us to believe. Basically, you’re just rude and inconsiderate.

This is why I am a great believer in the American concept of vigilante justice.

There was a time when, if you took a plane somewhere, you actually called ahead to the person who was meeting you and said, “Meet me by the baggage claim carousel 20 minutes after my flight lands.” The fact you now have a cell phone with you when the plane touches down still shouldn’t require this to be more than a 15 second conversation.

So, if it’s okay for someone to flip open their phone and give a play-by-play of how the plane just landed…and how now they’re standing up..and now they’re getting their luggage…but it seems like it’s stuck…and are they making overhead bins smaller or is larger luggage that’s the problem…and now they’re at Row 22…and now it looks like there’s someone whose scarf got caught in the seatbelt and they’re holding up the line…and now they’re at Row 13…and do you want them to snag a copy of the SkyMall magazine ’cause there’s some really cool stuff in there…and now they’re at Row 7…and they’ll look for you when they get to the arrival area…and what are you wearing because they haven’t seen you in four days and you might have lost 150 pounds, had plastic surgery and changed your whole wardrobe…and now they’re at Row 4…and, wait, wait, they’re going to do that cool Saturday Night Live thing where they say “buh-bye” to the flight attendant ’cause nobody’s probably ever done that before..

If I have to endure all that, I firmly believe it should be just as socially acceptable for me, as the person waiting behind them, to flick them sharply on their ear as many time as is necessary to get them to put down the phone.

Or, in the event that I have a half a bottle of Diet Coke left, I should feel perfectly within my rights to slowly pour soda in their pocket until they begin to wonder why something lukewarm and sticky is running down their leg.

When (if?) they finally do turn around I think a simple, disingenuous, “Oh, excuse me. Was that rude of me?” would help take back the country for the rest of us who appreciate technology but still manage to maintain at least a thin veneer of courtesy and consideration for other people.

Okay, all you closet radical activists out there…

Who’s with me on this?

“You don’t have to be a star, baby …”

Back in olden times (and I’m talking real olden times — not just like in the days before cellphones), some Ancient Greeks looked up at a star-filled night sky and pondered the vastness of the universe. They speculated on the meaning of life and mused about the insignificance of man as they gazed at the cosmos.

And they did what men have done throughout the ages — laughed, got drunk and made up stuff. (Editor’s note: In ancient times women weren’t allowed to laugh or get drunk. They could make up stories, but only to explain to their 34-Short husband why there was an extra large toga in the closet.)

It turns out the revered civilization that gave us logic, democracy and ouzo also gave us a lasting another contribution that continues to affect our lives to this day: constellations.

Ahoy, polloi

Constellations are one of the timeless features of recorded human history. They are also one of the stupidest.

At some point, way before the invention of Highlights magazine, a bunch of guys laying on their backs in the middle of the night decided to play connect the dots. As a result of their drunken Friday night party games, we have 88 constellations and 12 signs of the zodiac.

And 2500 years later, women are still having to fend off idiotic pick-up lines like, “What’s your sign?”

There has been some real progress over the intervening time span, however. Now, women can speculate on the meaning of existence and muse about the insignificance of men while gazing into their Cosmos.

As far as anyone can tell, the only purpose of constellations is to provide employment opportunities for geeky planetarium employees, an excuse for third graders to go on a field trip and a place for teenagers to make out.

It’s all because the ancestors of the modern stoners, spent time exercising their “imaginations.” If these guys were alive today, they’d still be laughing as people squinted up at the sky and said, “Yeah, I think I kind of see it…”

To really appreciate how crazy the whole constellation thing is let’s look at some pictures of the most famous constellation: Orion.

This is Orion as it appears in the night sky.

Notice the belt, the outstretched arm holding the bow and … who am I kidding? Unless you’ve recently been struck by lightning you probably don’t see any of that.

What you need is the guy with the pocket protector to dial up the next Power Point overlay ….

This is Orion as it appears at the planetarium or at your kid’s science fair

And, finally, this is Orion as he appeared to the Ancient Greeks after their breakthrough discovery of how to ferment grapes…

This Orion best viewed after three bong hits while listening to “Purple Haze”

Below is the same night sky the Greeks viewed, only as seen by early U.S. settlers out West. It’s a little known fact that, before he became an iconic cowboy, The Lone Ranger worked at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. The mask was a last minute addition so no one would recognize the former astronomy major.

The history of constellations could have been quite different if there had been cowboys around in Plato’s time….

The constellation Orion, or as early cowboys dubbed it, Clint, as it appears in the night sky

This is the constellation Clint found in the planetarium or on the kid’s menu at T.G.I.Friday’s

This Clint best viewed in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly while drinking whiskey

How ridiculous are constellations? The only one that anyone can actually pick out with out a laser pointer, The Big Dipper, isn’t even a constellation. It’s what’s called an asterism (from the ancient Greek word meaning “we were just messin’ with you”).

An asterism is a group of stars that didn’t make it big enough to warrant being referred to as a constellation.

Asterisms are like the Kathy Griffins of the Milky Way.

But just when you’re ready to give up on the whole idea that stars influence popular culture, something comes along to make you think….

Would be really weird if the movie was distributed by Orion Pictures….

Coincidence? Or was it written in the stars? ……

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The stars are always out on Project Runway and on Project Blog….

In case you’ve not been staying up to date with your Reality on Bravo news, Project Blog is the blogger’s answer to Project Runway. We’ve got the best of the best in bloggers ready to go head to head in weekly competitions for the grand prize:

• An autographed picture of Jackie Warner, courtesy of Sky Sport and Spa (Jackie Warner’s gym from Work Out)
• A pair of shoes from the newest line from Jonathan Kayne (one of my favorite Project Runway Alums)
• A Soffe college hoodie, courtesy ofBCS Frenzy
• Gold-plated earrings from Aurora at Between the Sheets
• A pet portrait, courtesy of Intricate Art
• A set of bud vases from Top Design’s Jonathan Adler

And as a reader here are Reality on Bravo, YOU CAN WIN TOO! Every week, Reality on Bravo is teaming up with some awesome sponsors to offer prizes for lucky readers. Anyone who leaves a comment on the voting post (which will go live on Thursday) will be automatically entered to win the super-awesome secret prize!

As for the competition, you have a say in that too! Every week after Project Runway, Allison will announce the weekly challenge and our competitors will scurry away to write some amazing posts. Read them, and on Friday, vote for your favorites. Your votes, along with the opinions of our amazing judges, Bethany (the winner of the RoB “Create Your Own Reality Show” contest) and April (an extraordinary professional writer and blogger), determine who stays and who “goes home”

And now, here’s what you really want to know - THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE:

This week, the contestants had to use unusual products - things found in a candy sore. This week, your challenge is just as sweet. Thankfully, your “products” aren’t quite as unusual! We want to see what you can do with pictures. You must use at least ONE picture in your post, but beyond that it is up to you - use 5 pictures, ten pictures, on hundred pictures…we simply want to see what you can do.

You can use words as well, but the emphasis here is drawing people in with your pictures…be they photoshopped, hilarious, heart-warming, colorful, etc. How can you use pictures to keep your readers captivated? Keep in mind that we’ll be looking at every aspect of your picture-using skills.

Oh, and make sure that you use pictures you love - it is another TWO WEEK CHALLENGE!

You have until 8 AM on Friday to post, but remember - your link will be posted here for voting as soon as you post your entry, so for maximum voting, get your entries in soon!

Bloggers, start your engines! Check back later for a complete list of posts from our blogtestants, and don’t forget to vote on your favorite! Oh, and if anyone else out there wants to play along, send me the link to your post and I’ll include it on the list - you won’t be eligible for the grand prize, but you will get a little link love.

Good luck, bloggers!

Claritin. Clear? ….

There are many things you can tell people you’ve developed that make you an interesting and sought-after guest at parties.

Things like “I’ve developed a cure for baldness” or, in the event you’re already bald, “I’ve developed a large piece of property.”

You can assume statements like, “I’ve developed the pictures of my vacation in Cleveland” or “I developed this strange rash after sleeping with Sally” are not quite so interesting.

Unless, of course, Sally or someone she is sleeping with is at the party. In that case you will be sought after by both Sally and her current lover, but most likely for different reasons.

For some strange reason, this was the first year I developed allergies.

There are very few things short of a pocket protector that make you less fun at a party than an extended sneezing fit.

Afterwards, there’s always that awkward, moment when some smart-ass says, “Well, I guess I’m not having any more guacamole.”

What’s weird about the whole allergy thing is that I lived for over 10 years in New York City without a problem. If you’ve ever seen the movie Resident Evil, where Milla Jovovich battles zombies after mysterious spores are released in Raccoon City, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what it’s like to take the subway in Manhattan.

Savvy New Yorkers know that if you ever see Milla running through the subway, it’s a good idea to follow her because whatever’s coming down the platform is going to be really scary.

And by scary I mean either the flesh-eating, walking dead or an allergist that is approved by your HMO.

The allergist I went to came to the conclusion that I was allergic to dust, pollen and animal dander.

Or, to put that in non-medical terms — everything.

Each of these allergens has its own special problems attached to it.

Dust is a natural marvel that has baffled scientists since the Renaissance when European scientists first discovered how much of it had accumulated under the bed during the Dark Ages.

Pollen is the way plants have sex. For some reason, plants are most sexually active in the spring. Around the time plants are having orgies, those of us with allergies have red-rimmed eyes, constant sinus discharge and a large wad of moist tissue in our front pocket.

Many healthy people assume that this might be a problem when dating.

Those of us with allergies know there simply are no awkward, first-date gaps in the conversation when you can fill the time with:
Her: “Are you OK?”
Him: “Oh, sure. It’s just allergies.”
Her: “You look terrible.”
Him: “Wanna go back to my place and make out?”
Her: “Not unless you have a haz-mat suit I can wear.”

Animal dander is a problem if you are a single guy because it is a proven fact that 98% of all single women own cats. These are invariably the most intelligent and good-looking women.

I figure it’s okay to go ahead and wipe my nose on my sleeve since I don’t have a chance with them, anyhow.

Desperate for anything that works, many allergy sufferers turn to holistic medicine. Holistic medicine is where you attempt to treat the whole body, not just the symptoms.

As a recent convert to holistic medicine, I have to admit to being impressed with the results. I recommend one tablet of Claritin and a six-pack of beer.

It is important to remember the beer because that’s where the holistic part comes in. The Claritin clears your sinuses and the beer makes your whole body feel good.

And, if you’re lucky, the heavily-tattooed girl with no cats may even start to look better ….